Crash and Burn

Film: Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

Once I saw the full title of tonight’s film, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes, I decided I’d type it once at the start of the review and refer to it as Those Magnificent Men every time after that. Seriously, it’s as if the filmmakers decided that having a really long title would make the film funnier. This is intended to be a comedy, after all. I’m also sure that in 1965, it was funny. But now it’s 50 years later and the things that were funny 50 years ago don’t always hold up.

Those Magnificent Men is a farce of a sort. It’s a film made in the same vein and spirit of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. However, instead of a cross-country race for treasure, it’s an airplane race from London to Paris in 1910, just seven years after the invention of powered flight. Airplane enthusiast and British officer Richard Mays (James Fox) is determined to improve the state of British aviation. To do so, he enlists the support of his girlfriend, Patricia Rawnsley (Sarah Miles). Patricia is the daughter of Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley), a newspaper publisher. Intrigued by Richard’s idea, Lord Rawnsley sponsors a race from London to Paris, with a $50,000 cash prize for the winner.

Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, Sword

Film: The Longest Day
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

In the annals of military history, there is probably no single day more important or meaningful, at least in the last 100 years, than June 6, 1944. For a modern movie watcher, Saving Private Ryan, or at least the opening of that film, is the quintessential cinematic depiction of D-Day. The Longest Day, from three decades earlier, though, is a true cinematic depiction of the invasion of Normandy by the Allied forces. There is no plot here beyond the invasion, no Private Ryan to rescue, just the story of getting a mass of soldiers onto a beach and getting them inland to start liberating Europe.

What makes The Longest Day particularly interesting is that it looks at both sides of the conflict and attempts to bringin as much as possible. We spend time on each of the five beaches, we spend time with the glider troops and paratroopers, and we also see some of the planning and defensive measures put in place by the German army. In other words, it’s more or less a comprehensive look at the buildup on both sides of the channel and then the invasion itself.